tontine
/ˈtɑntin/
noun
- A financial arrangement in which a group of people pool money, and the surviving members receive increasing shares until the last survivor takes everything.
- The novel's plot revolves around a mysterious tontine that leads to several suspicious deaths.
- My grandfather invested in a tontine with his old army buddies, hoping to outlive them all.
- Tontines were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries as a way to raise government funds.
- A scheme or agreement where benefits or rewards go to the last remaining participant or survivor.
- Some retirement communities have a tontine-like system where the last resident gets the remaining funds.
- The office betting pool turned into a kind of tontine, with the last person still working there winning the pot.
- The inheritance was structured as a tontine, so the cousins competed to see who would live longest.